Couric prepares to take over nightly news

June 02, 2006|MATEA GOLD Los Angeles Times

NEW YORK "I've always been a serious person, actually." Katie Couric was talking about what's been Topic A in media circles this spring: Can she make the transition from the mostly frothy melange that is morning television to the buttoned-down world of network evening news? The longtime "Today" co- anchor made no pains to hide her exasperation with such thinking. "Blah, blah, blah," she said. "John Chancellor" -- the NBC morning show host who went on to anchor the nightly news for 12 years -- "drove a go-kart on the 'Today' show. Get over yourselves, really. I think it's sort of a lemminglike reaction and not very informed because I think if anybody watches the show, they'll know we do plenty of serious things." But she wasn't done: "To suggest you can't have fun and you can't talk about fashion and enjoy it and then do a serious story on welfare reform is just limited in your thinking." Couric, who wrapped up her 15-year run on "Today" Wednesday, was careful to keep her thinking to herself for the last year as pundits debated the merits of her making the jump to the "CBS Evening News." With the decision behind her, however, the 49-year-old broadcaster is feeling freer to speak her mind. During a wide-ranging conversation on a recent afternoon, she demonstrated the frank self-assuredness that lies beneath her lighthearted on-air demeanor. "The notion that you can't wear mascara and a pretty pair of earrings and ask really intelligent, insightful questions at the same time is just so passé," she said firmly. Couric is the first to admit that making the decision to walk away from "Today" -- her home for the bulk of her professional career -- to take over the third-place evening newscast at another network was not an easy one, but as she prepared to leave NBC, the broadcaster seemed relaxed, even liberated. "I do have mixed emotions because I'm going (to) miss everyone I work with so much," she said. "But no matter what happens, I feel really confident that I've made the right decision." Couric's move to CBS will no doubt be scrutinized more substantially than the last time she changed jobs, in April 1991, when the then-34-year-old was named co-anchor of "Today" alongside Bryant Gumbel, a morning show veteran. Couric had been at NBC for just two years -- as the deputy Pentagon correspondent and then national correspondent for "Today" -- but she said she had no hesitation about telling Michael Gartner, then the news division president, that she wanted "a 50-50 split in hard news" with Gumbel. "Can you imagine?" she said and laughed. "The gall I had. I'm sure they were probably like, 'Who is this person? Where does she come from?' " Gartner promised her 52-48, and Couric said, "Well, I'll take that and I'll build from there." Couric can't pinpoint a moment when she felt ready to leave "Today." "It was an evolution, really," she said. "I always would say, 'Would it kill me if somebody else was doing this instead of me?' And when my contracts came up, I always thought, 'I'm just not ready.' But this last time I was. So it sort of passed the 'I'm-not-going-to-die-if-I'm-not-doing-the-Thanksgiving-Day-parade test.' " The CBS job -- which offered the chance to do long-form pieces for "60 Minutes" as well as anchoring the evening news -- "just seemed like a wonderful, if highly public, exciting risk to take." When she takes over the anchor desk from Bob Schieffer in early September, Couric will be the first woman officially to helm a network evening newscast alone, a fact she called "a nice bonus" but not a driving factor in her decision. But there's no doubt that her influence on the program will be closely watched, as well as her ability to challenge current NBC colleague Brian Williams, who anchors the No. 1 news broadcast, and ABC's recently anointed Charles Gibson, and propel the "CBS Evening News" out of last place. A larger challenge: to prove the vitality of the evening news genre after years of declining audiences. Couric declined to discuss her plans for the newscast, whose focus she is going to develop in meetings with CBS producers throughout the summer, except to say that it will be a reflection of her sensibilities. "There's not going to be like a fun quarantine: 'You can't laugh on the evening news,' " she said. "I think viewers are much smarter than TV executives, in a way, because I don't think anyone wants a one-dimensional person. I think they want authenticity, and authenticity means you're a multifaceted individual. "I'm not going to change who I am or how I relate to people or how I tell stories. Because I do some of the lighter stuff and have a sense of humor at time(s), doesn't mean that I'm not a really serious person, when necessary. So I think it will be a combination of everything that hopefully I have to offer."